00:00 Introduction You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. It is February, and we're going to be talking about flagships today. My name is Roger. I do beer here at Binny's. Joining me in the studio, we have... Jim, Communications. Greg, Communications. Chris. In communicato. Always. You don't check your email very often. No one up there does. I don't know what you're talking about. My email is open all day long. I'm staring at it all day. All right. If you've been reading your Beer Buzz, you'll know that for the last four or five years or so, every February, we like to celebrate something that beer writer Stephen Beaumont came up with originally. But people love to geek out on what's new, what's the new exciting thing. We often joke that new beers and air quotes are like you grab a roll, you grab a dice with different hop names on it, toss the dice and that's a new artwork, new beer. I really think a brewery should start doing that in their tap room. Yeah. No kidding. It's not a bad idea. It's not all that often that people sit around and talk about the classic beers. What is a flagship? So a flagship is sort of the beer that a brewery hangs their hat on. It's a best seller. It's a thing that's kept the lights on, something that they may have won many awards for in the past because they've submitted to competitions. Part of the reason that I really gravitated towards this is that people start discovering craft beer every single year. People turn 21 or people just sort of are curious about it. So a lot of times we'll talk about a flagship beer and people just kind of dismiss it like, oh, I've had that beer before or whatever. I want something new. But that beer might be new to somebody that just started drinking craft beer. Tell them it is a new beer. New to you. And then- And not to mention, there's a reason they're their flagships because they're great. Play the hits. In a lot of cases. Yeah, play the hits. Exactly. I just saw an interview with John Mellencamp last night. He's doing a whole tour only playing hits. How exciting. Johnny Cougar? Johnny Cougar. SEM? That's right. The other- Johnny Hoosier. The other thing that can be cool about revisiting flagships is that people's tastes change and trends change. And whereas like Hazy IPA has been king for the last decade or so, people are swinging back. There's a pendulum going back towards West Coast. So when you look at a beer like, say, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, it's a pretty awesome West Coast style pale ale. So if you're curious about that kind of beer style, you don't have to just go find a local brewery that makes that. You can look at an actual West Coast brewery making a West Coast pale. So did you bring Sierra Nevada? No. I didn't because producer Jim here had a great idea. We've talked about flagship fed before. He's like, why don't we do one that's specifically geared towards local breweries? Can I do the voice thing? Sure. Flagship February. Oops. All Chicago. Oops. Joke's on you. It's not just Chicago. Chicago area. Land. And environs. Chicago land area. The tri-state area. Which is like the opposite way of saying exactly what you're saying. Go to the source. If you want a West Coast, go to the West Coast. The way we're going to taste these today, arrange them in chronological order. So, this is also kind of fun as a celebration of how long some of these breweries have been around for. So, if you go on our website and click on Flagship February, I often try to source the oldest version of a beer label slash artwork that I can find. Oh, yeah. It's hilarious when then the reps go, hey, you know, we have updated artwork. Yeah, I know, man. I know. I'm not using your 30-year-old label. We did this on purpose. Should we play I Haven't Had This Beer In? Yeah. Yeah, go for it. Okay. I haven't had this beer in 15 years, at least. Probably also same with me. I haven't had this beer since the Roundhouse was actually functioning and trains were way back in 1885. Taking out the old pocket watch. 4:26 Two Brothers French Ale All right, so our first beer is from Two Brothers, one of the oldest Chicagoland area craft breweries. They were founded in 1997. One thing that's kind of interesting about flagships is that they often change over the years. So you'll see, you know, as trends change and everything, maybe they'll switch. We're going to try Three Floyd's later, just started out as Alpha King, then it was Gumball, then arguably it's Zombie. It's Fluid. This beer has been their workhorse flagship from the time it was released. So when was that? 2002. So this beer has been around for a while. Part of the reason I wanted to feature this one were, you know, a lot of IPAs and pale ales on this list. This was something they took a chance with. And, you know, it's a French style country ale, which you might be thinking, how would anyone ever, you know, lead with that? Like, that's pretty damn obscure. Yeah. They were doing it for a restaurateur who, you know, provided French cuisine. So something we definitely need to get back to in the beer world is pairing great beer with great food and complimentary flavors here. You know, when you're using things like caramelized malts, this beer has got some nice caramel color. And you think about the famous Meliard reaction. Synergistic flavors there, whether you're caramelizing meats, veggies, whatever. Did we say what this is? This is, I believe I did. Maybe I didn't. This is Domaine Dupage. Yes. Domaine? Domaine Dupage. I always say Domaine Dupage. Yeah, I'm joking because it gets pronounced like a million different ways. It says on the can, there's no wrong way to say it. Oh, nice. So the running joke is that no one could say this beer. I mean, they're from Dupage County. I think we can go with Domaine Dupage. Right. Domaine Dupage. French country ale, 6.2% ABV. Very well attenuated though. Wait, seriously? 6.2% ABV on this? Yeah. This is a monster. It tastes like Wheaties. It kind of tastes like how I remember fat tire tasting. Yeah. Good point, man. Yeah. It definitely has that. It's caramely and it's grain forward for sure. It's grain forward. But it's the Thrilla from Warren Villa. It's still attenuated, though, to like I, you know, it's not overly sweet by any means, you know, which is nice because sometimes when people see like an amber beer, they might think it's going to be too sweet. But this has some nice balance. It really does shine, you know, with if you're curious about food and beer pairing, or you've heard me talk about it, like why is Roger never shut up about pairing food and beer? It's because when you hit something well, it's amazing. And if you're intimidated by it, like start with things that are amber in color because they're the most foolproof. It's the way life should be. Why did food and beverages ever get divorced with each other in America? Because tap rooms used to be illegal, used to be like a saloon thing. You don't want the saloons opening in. It brings in the undesirables. So they used to always have requirements about if you're going to serve alcohol, you have to have food. You would sometimes have in the really old days the comedic like of sandwich that was sitting out on the table that was like, you know, had hair on it. The chips. I think it's chips. Yeah. Greg's favorite style of pizza. Yeah. But yeah, when- Smart cut. What's my favorite style of pizza? Tavern cut? Yeah. But yeah, when, you know, hazy started ruling the world and everyone started opening up tap rooms, a lot of them didn't have food. And I would also argue, you know, the hazy IPA we've joked isn't exactly as easy to pair with. It's kind of its fruit salad and a cup to begin with. You could have it with pudding. You could have a hat on a hat and serve it with- You could have it as pudding. You could just put it in a bowl of fruit salad and garnish it. When the craft brewing Renaissance was happening, there were brew pubs all over the place. And some of the oldest breweries here in Illinois kind of started that way, like Mickey Finn's and Flossmoor Station and Wild Onion. So yeah, they were synergistic. You wouldn't divorce the two, to your point. It would be like a rock bottom. It's like, yeah, come here, eat good food, drink good beer. 8:49 Three Floyds Wheat Ale All right, so coming up next, we're going to go across the border to Indiana. It's always been much to Illinois Brewer's chagrins that Three Floyds often just straight up gets referred to as a Chicago brewery. I never have cared because the Floyds are from Illinois. They grew up in Flossmoor, and when they started, they started in Hammond, right across the border. So yes, this brewery is based out of Munster, but that's a hop, skip, and a jump away from, you know, there's further Chicago suburbs, depending on where you're at, than to cross the border and drive to Munster. As I mentioned before, this one that we're going to taste today is Gumball Head, but you could kind of make an argument that originally their flagship was Alpha King Pale Ale. Definitely. Then Gumball Head, then Zombie Dust Pale Ale. What about Pride and Joy? Never really a flagship brand. Alpha King was the OG flagship for this brand. Pride and Joy was cool because it had English malts and even maybe some English hops paired with American hops. Gumball Head was one of those beers where several of the beers on our list started as a one-off or a seasonal, and it was just a summer beer. These kind of beers are great. Wheat beers are great in the summertime, but people loved it so much that they eventually had to make it year-round. I said I wasn't going to do it, but I drank four pack of Apocalypse Cows over the weekend. Nice. Yeah. Redux. I split a couple of cans with Mrs. first, so sorry. Is there what, nine, eight? Yeah. Yeah. I love that beer. I really love that beer. Really love Three Floyd's. Well, Lactose Incorporated for balance, not just to make a sloppy milkshake IPA. Yeah. Imagine that. Lactose Incorporated. I love that. That's my new mom name. That's what I heard too. I thought Roger was mockingly calling them Lactose Incorporated. Margarine Incorporated. That would be a good beer. I want to do Soul Asylum. Lactose Incorporated. That's literally the first thing I thought of. Did you notice also... I'm gonna drink up beer. They made it with sugar. That comes from a cow. Wow. So did you notice the artwork on Apocalypse Cow? Did it look familiar at all? There's a certain brewery called Hot Butcher for the World. Oh, yeah. So well before Hot Butcher, Three Floyd's employed him to do that funky art for Apocalypse Cow. That's pretty sweet. Yep. So Three Floyd's Gumball Head, Three Floyd's Brewing founded in 1996. They are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year. Keep an eye out for special anniversary re-releases. As Greg just mentioned, Apocalypse Cow was the last one. They also brought back behemoth. Behemoth and Lord Rear Admiral. You're reading my mind. We basically share the same venn diagram of popular culture. Yeah. Whenever someone says behemoth, I think of behemoth. All right. So this one, Gumball Head, it has been a mainstay of their portfolio since debuting in 2003. As I mentioned before, it was a summer beer. This is the beer where if you've heard me bitch and moan about that three floys will never disclose what kind of hops they're using or really any ingredients, it's twofold. They love German brewing and German brewers are like, nine, you don't give away the secrets. So some of it's that. But the other thing is that they got real mad when they brewed this beer. It was with this hot new hop that almost no one knew about called Amarillo. There was only one farm that grew Amarillo. It's one of those proprietary hops that you have to grant permission to someone else to contract it. Because of terroir and what not, there's some farmers that are like, no, we're not going to let anyone else grow it, which was the case with Amarillo for quite a bit of time. So everybody started brewing beers with Amarillo. Maybe Gumball had an influence on that. I don't think it was necessarily like everyone got together and said, have you had this Weed Ale from Three Floyd's? This is the new hop. It's got that Amarillo Brillo. They were so mad that they couldn't buy Amarillo for a while, but like never again, nobody can know what our hops are. But anyway. That was a dark age for us on the sales floor too. Oh, God. Because everybody wanted it, nobody knew how to say it. Yeah, have you had this beer that no one can get? Yeah. Do you have the Gum Beer? Yeah. Bubblegum Face is one of my favorite. Yeah. Missed though. Do you have Bubblegum Face beer? But yeah, it's easy to see why this beer took off so much. Emeril Hops are famously very citrusy. They have kind of an orangy, tangeriney flavor to them. This is crisp, dialed in. For three Floyd standards, it's 38 IBUs, which is like a little bit tamer than some of their stuff. I don't remember it being this tame. But I do remember it being unlike any beer that I had had at the time. And then it tasted like fruit juice. Well, right. It seems really dialed back by a comparison to the hazy phase we went through, where everything was massively juicy. It's the original Juicy Boy, I think. This is what, yeah. Now this seems like balanced and reserved. Right. So did the world change? Or is it just me? It's Roger doing right now. Roger is finally destroying this really strange looking orange. I thought he was just going to like, I thought he was just going to start eating it. No, yeah, we just talked about Gumball Head for too long. All right. So I'm peeling a sumo orange. So since, as I said, Amarillo is famously often described as tasting like orange, I bought some of these gigantic sumo oranges and figured I'd bring some in and let you guys try some. Nice. Alongside these beers, many of which are citrusy. I find your interests in fruit to be intriguing, but this is the most basic bitch fruit you've ever brought. Come on. It comes out like once a year, right? They're not, yeah, they're not common. They're also, they're really juicy. I take it back. This orange is awesome. Dude, that's basic. That's the thing about oranges, man. They're such a crap roll, crap dice roll and sumos. Crap dice roll. Crap dice roll. That is pretty fantastic. It's a roll of the dice getting there. It's a roll of the dice with oranges. There is nothing more disappointing than one of those mandarin oranges that's just all pulp. It's like dried up desiccated. Oh my God. But I had a bag of Q-Days last week that were just delicious. After several weeks of having just garbage. Those are good. Bro, this orange rules. Yeah, man. They're really good. The exciting thing about it is it's sweet and fruity, but the acidity is great. Yeah. It's almost lemony. I mean, we've always said that the best things are that balance of sweetness and acidity. So check out some sumo oranges while they're around. If you like a nice citrusy beer, Gumball Head continues to just be a crusher. It's available in 12 packs now, which is pretty sweet. We've just come a long way from this beer is old enough that it debuted in a 22-ounce bomber bottle. Yeah. Oh, that's wild. 16-ounce cans, 16-ounce four-packs also. It's a wheat beer that you don't have to put an orange in. Right. Oh, really? 16:33 Goose Island Urban Wheat We're doing this one? You know, I figured this is a pretty important beer, and I know it might not be everybody's cup of tea, but it's definitely a beer that got a lot of people drinking craft beer that didn't know what craft beer was or just wasn't on their radar. Definitely, I'm one of those people. It was one of my first. Yeah. Yep. So a year later in 2004. Wow, it's been around for that long? We have the release of Goose Island 312. That's crazy. Goose founded in 1988, one of the class of 88 breweries. There were quite a few famous breweries that came out and that were founded in that year. They definitely started as this English inspired brewery that focused on a lot of English pub ale type beers. Honkers Ale was kind of inspired by ESB. Their IPA was a little more the touch English, at least in its malt profile, not at tops. 312 is kind of their attempt to be hip and like bring in some of the kids that were of age, you know, and not be this like, oh, these are more like old school beers. This was supposed to be like a new school, you know, something light, bright. Yeah. Back then, their funnest beer was Summertime. Right. And they had a hex nut brown. Yeah, hex nut brown. The first Goose Island beer I ever had was a brown ale at the Brew Pub in 1988. Wow. Yeah. Usually, when a brand, any kind of brand attempts to how do you do fellow kids pivot, it doesn't really work out. But this is like, this worked, I mean, this worked perfectly for them. Huge turning point in their company. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it became such a wild success that this is that, I mean, this is what inspired the Anheuser-Busch to look towards it. They're like, oh, there's something to be had here. So flavor-wise, I think one of the other unique things about this is that it combines American hops, Millennium and Cascade with Hallertow. So that's kind of interesting to have kind of that classic German herbal flavor with some more famously citrusy American hops. 4.2% ABV. I think they've kind of cleaned it up a little over the years. I think it used to be a little hazier than it is now. It still has the softness of a wheat beer. Yeah, I think the wheat is really an evidence here in the nose and on the palate. I mean, you mentioned Wheaties earlier, but I get Wheaties in the nose here. It's so light, though. It's so light and fluffy. Yeah. I mean, the Midwest has always been kind of enamored with wheat beer, and I think some of it is that our temperatures are usually pretty extreme. So we have two seasons sometimes, hotter than hell and cold is all whatever. So when it's super hot out in the summer and you want something refreshing, wheat beers, especially ones like this that aren't overly sweet, can be where it's at. Yeah, it's not thick. Yeah. Yeah. Our German heritage in this town, I think we've imported wheat beer for a long time. I have personal memories of the 70s and knowing of like Hacker Shore. And like the mid 70s. Yeah, Hacker Shore. And I don't know if it was in Chicago at the time, but in Omaha, the craft beer that we all had was Boulevard Wheat. And this was like a crispier, easier to drink version of something similar. Right. Yeah. Not only the beer itself, but the marketing, the tap handle, that was a black telephone. Yeah. I mean, that was like genius. And the yellow, the yellow and black color, the top of the bottle looks like it had like black and yellow stripes. It looks like a bee. I mean, there's the skyline is on the label. It was like a perfect confluence of marketing and product and hometown pride. Yeah. Hometown pride. Yeah. Definitely. When you think about it, it's like the old timiness of the old telephone and the color scheme kind of reminds me of old school taxis. There's a reason they made taxis yellow and black. It really catches your eye. Good point. Goose Island 312. Again, a beer that we often feature at incredibly affordable prices. A great thing to have is one of those beers that's going to appeal to a very wide audience. It's great to have in coolers in the summertime or in your fridge for a party and whatnot. Now we're moving a few years in the future to 2009. 21:08 Half Acre and Revolution IPAs This is one of the most iconic pale ales, I would say in the Midwest for sure, not just Chicagoland, but this is the beer that built this brewery. This is Half Acre Daisy Cutter. Woo, had a six pack of Half Acre Daisy Cutter over the weekend too. It was a fun one. Also that delirium red. Oh, yeah. Got the stove pipe here. Nice. It's a big tall can of Daisy Cutter. 19.2 ounce. It's a train beer. A train beer? Yeah, it's a train red. Metra, of course. Also appropriate because when this beer debuted, it came in a bottle that was only a couple ounces bit larger. This is another one that started as just a one-off. Was it a bomber? Really? Yeah, started as a one-off and a bomber in 2009. Daisy Cutter, another beer that I feel has been tweaked a little bit over the years. They softened this beer up a little bit. Half Acre is pretty genius with their usage of hops, and they've always embraced new varieties. When this beer came out, I used to joke that it had all these little daisies on the label. I'm like, yeah, it's grassy. It had a greenness to it. It's true. It's like a dirty little spice quality. Over the years, they've toned that down and ramped up the citrus, which I think is smart. I think you still get that grassiness. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's bitter in a strange way that a lot of IPAs aren't grassy in a grassy way. Yeah. Yeah. Half Acre does an excellent job of crafting the grain side of things as well, and they've always haven't been afraid to add a little bit of malt structure to things. So pale ale more than anything else, I think the most important word is balance. You know, it was a shame when I think one of the examples of craft beer being at its lowest and dumbest in the recent past was when session IPA became a thing. And it's like, it's like, oh, these people are like, yeah, everyone drinks eight IPAs now. And like, they're too strong. Like, okay. Well, you could just drink a pale ale then. Now we have to invent the session IPA. Like, no, but it has to say IPA. Like, it has to have the word India, which in the grand scheme of things is just a historical connection that is totally irrelevant. And it has nothing to do with India now, Indian ingredients, anything. And the beer style is so far removed from that. What it originally tasted like. It's ridiculous. So it was just so dumb to me that people would be hesitant to try all the wonderful pale ales that already existed or some of the breweries at local like Half Acre that were kind of always about that style. They're just like, no, IPA, man. IPA. Just pour me an IPA. So if you're kind of feeling these days like... I was looking at you, Greg. You're feeling attacked. No. Well, you've always stood your ground, Greg. You enjoy big beers. You're like the Knicks Tavern. Like we don't need anything to give the joint atmosphere. So out you two pixies go. I don't know if that was a compliment or not. Am I supposed to fight him now? I think you're the Mr. Gower in the story. What the hell are you talking about? Get out of here, you old drunk. A lot of people can't handle the big beers. But if you just want a beer that is easier drinking, making a good accession IPA is almost impossible. It's got to have malt structure. It's got to have a balance. So, the great pale ale, something like Daisy Cutter, I think are a tour de force and that balance of malt structure and hot bitterness. I agree. Modern Chicago classic. Drinkable, delicious. I also agree. Give it to me galactic and double. This was one of those beers too that I thought was cool to have as a local option because it showed up at a lot of places. So, you'd be at a show and you're like, oh, cool, I can drink Daisy Cutter instead of some macro-y thing that was a fortune and I didn't really want to drink anyway. I know exactly what you're talking about. So, again, if you're unfamiliar with Half Acre, you should explore their whole portfolio of stuff because they do a lot of things well, but Daisy Cutter remains a very impressive brew. One of the other, we're just hitting all the really big, iconic Chicago breweries here now. So let's move on to Revolution. This was kind of a fun fact, which if I knew, I had forgotten, but Antihero IPA started as a one-off. It was a one-off? The fans just said, Man, you've got to bring that Antihero beer back. So it's just so... They thought that they were gonna coast to success on Eugene Porter. Yeah, man, it's crazy, right? It just seems like it's so linked to their brand identity and their identity as a brewery. I remember this one in a bomber for sure. In a bomber? Well, I think all their stuff started in bombers. You're talking about the visual imagery of the branding of 312, the tap handle for this beer. Yeah. You can see it in the bar. It's power to the people, baby. And it's cream. Here we have Anti Hero in a stove pipe, Jim. Nice work. Basically the same liquid as a bomber bottle. We're so old that you realize when we say bombers now, there's generations of people that are like, what the hell are you talking about? That's wild. It used to be like the ascendant thing in beer. I know. It was the thing in craft beer. Started by Becks of all people. And Becks. Yeah, people called Becks single bottle bombers and then like craft co-opted it from that. Wow, that's crazy. Which I never quite understood what that was all about. Is it some sort of like war reference or? It's got to be some sort of World War II thing. Maybe it's what it does to you. Yeah. Anyway. Well, Daisy Cutter is a bomb. It is. Yeah, good point. All right. So Revolution, Antihero Revolution opened up as a brewery in 2010, and this beer was from 2010 as well. So American as American comes as far as the hop bill. This is 6.7% ABV, 65 IBUs, and it is all sea hops, baby. Centennial, Chinook, Citra, Crystal and Cascade. The malt bill is pale, carapils. There's some red wheat in there, which is kind of interesting, and some Munich malt. I know they're kind of like thinking outside the box. So how do you, you know, capture magic in a bottle? I think sometimes it's daring to be different, putting like a little bit of wheat in your IPA, putting some German malt. But yeah, there's just beautiful kind of amber color to this. So many IPAs now are just getting lighter and lighter in color. Especially with these kind of hops that are very citrusy and piney. I want that malt backbone. Something you've always said, Greg. It's like. Oh, this is in perfect balance. Yeah. I mean, and it's bitter. It's piney. It's an excellent beer. There's no two ways about it. This is very well made. It stops just short of being resinous. You know, when people talk about, I mentioned Sierra Nevada earlier, like this is very much in that vein of that classic West Coast that Sierra Nevada was one of the most important breweries for like kind of inspiring people, that mix of the Cascade Agreed. That's excellent. We live in a great town. Yeah, we do. And what's funny is that until Goose Island opened, there weren't many breweries. And now there's like a triple of a brewery in the Chicago land area, but it's all relatively a new thing. 29:31 Pipeworks Double IPA Do you have in your magic bag of tricks that are my favorite Chicago flagship beer? You do! Yeah, that's right, he has it. Ninja vs Unicorn. I knew it, I knew it. I thought you were looking for an old Peter Hamm beer. I love this beer so much. Every time I drink it, I'm like, oh yeah, that's why I love this. Yeah. Because it's built for speed. What? Dude, this is, no one if he tastes this blind, would say this is 8% alcohol. It tastes like grapefruit juice. It's dangerously easy to drink. Pipe Works Ninja vs. Unicorn. Pipe Works opened its doors in 2012. That is surprising to me. I didn't even think it was that long ago. 2012. Yeah. They were all bomber releases. Everything was... Yeah. They started this trend of, they were crowd funded and instead of having a line up of beers, they said, we're going to brew different beers all the time, and you help us pick our line up of beers. Good in theory, they Oppenheim-ed it. People were just like, no, we just want a new beer every other week. Let's just keep doing that. I have become death destroyer of beer aisles. Yeah. Well, it's interesting though because I kind of remember when they started and it was all bombers and it was really hard to find. And then eventually they started canning. And then I think that their innovation on the bombers, they still had them, but they did actually make a concerted effort to have like staples. Like they had Lizard King, they had Ninja versus Unicorn. I'm glad you bring that up. And then after that, they like started, they just went back to different beers every week and still have these, you know, still have these, you know, staples, but. And the one thing that they do deserve credit for is that a couple other breweries started making, you know, a beer every other week, but it was straight up just an IPA or a double IPA. Pipeworks has always done a lot of different styles and some crazy ones too. I mean, they have a whole line of lagers with fun labels. And very creative beers at times where it's like- Fishes with mango habanera. Yeah. They make like a, it's almost Mardi Gras, they make a King Cake beer. We talked about the King Cake and that. This will be a mess. And it was actually really good. What's the other one? You said there were like three that were kind of the similar that they did. There was an Orchata one. Orchata one, yeah. But there was a third one. Yeah, you're right. We've done on the show before and it was all very subdued. Yeah. So very talented brewers there. This beer is made with Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo, Mosaic and Columbus. So kind of an all-star line up of like newer American hops. A little bit chivy on the nose. Yeah, this is sneaky how you don't perceive the alcohol. So now that you can buy weed illegally, we can just say like cannabis or weed. You know what that's dank. It's dank. I mean, this is big damn dank. There's pineapple fruit underneath it too. It's lovely. Pineapple but not like overly sweet, which is nice. Like, you know, the sweet fruit with bitterness instead of just losing the bitterness, which is what a bunch of other breweries started doing. And it does have enough malt to bring it into balance too, right? Yeah. Like you could have this much hops on something thinner and it's going to taste like your Session IPA or whatever. The alcohol is actually giving it some balance too because of that. It's Reppin Binny's at a beer event, a beer tasting at House of Blues. And I like took some time to myself and tried 40 different beers. Some time to myself. And then somebody just slipped me a can of this. And I was like, oh yeah, I just love this one beer. And there's this whole... At that time, you know, it was like at the... Everybody coming out with a new beer every single week. And it was just all these messy beers. And then here is this one just like perfectly crispy bitter beer. Well, the other thing that I think is funny about the whole, you know, why should we care about flagships? Because I guarantee that each one of these beers that we're tasting today, a lot of time went into making the beer and perfecting it and changing it. And it wasn't just like, all right, man, new beer, new beer time. I mean, and so think of if you, you know, did something, because brewing is a mix of art and science. So, say you wrote something that you were really proud of, be it a poem or a street story or a novel or you, you know, compose some music, you know, you wrote a song and everyone was just like, oh, that's cool, man. Like, well, give me a new one. And you would just never revisit it again. You're like, I've listened to that once or I read that once. Like, it was awesome. But like, I never want to hear it again. I already had it. I already had it. I already had it. Ticked it off. Checked it in. Checked it in. Yep. Gave it four. So, that's what kills me about some of this stuff. And it's just, you know, these aren't just nothing enterprises who create some of these recipes. Yeah. You know, like, there was trial and error here. Well, I think all these brewers, maybe with the exception of two brothers, are, they have both, they have kind of the best of both worlds. Because, I mean, Rev, Half Acre, we've already talked about, Pipe Works, you know, they make a ton of different beers, but they also still have, you know, the core. And even Goose Island, kind of, I mean, there's a lot of different beer hugs and there's a lot of different, they have struck a balance and, you know, Three Floyd's is always, like, putting out new stuff or bringing back old stuff and still releasing Don't get me wrong. Yeah, you absolutely should do both. Oh, yeah. I think that's the best. I'm speaking more just, like, to the consumer even than the brewery at times. Like, I'll be advocating, especially for bringing things back that worked and were great. And you can tell there's some hesitancy because they're like, well, will people buy it? And, like, thankfully, usually the answer is yes. Yeah. The trap you can fall into is, like, will it sell as much as it did 20 years ago? Right. Probably not because there's a million new options now, you know. But that doesn't mean you should just give up on it and never make it again. But from a business standpoint, like, you need to have, you need to innovate, but you also need to have stuff that people can rely on that are, they know what they're going to go back to every time they buy it, they know what they're going to get. Yeah. And it's important to introduce that to a new round of people. That's what kills me sometimes, too. Next up, we're going to Off Color. 36:17 Off Color and Maplewood So we've been very IPA heavy here. This one we're taking a step away from that. Off Color opened their doors in 2013. Part of their identity was that they were going to kind of depart from the norm and be a little bit different. John and Dave, very much fans of traditional European style beers, things from places like Belgium, Germany, the UK and this is Apex Predator, which is their flagship and it is a Belgian style Saison. 6.5% ABV, 35 IBU. It is made with a mixture of Pilsner malt, flaked wheat, honey malt and a little bit of sugar, which is an old Belgian brewing trick incorporated here. It's going to completely ferment out. There's no going to be any of the sugar left. It's a conscious decision to use it. It's not like a cheapening thing. It's going to bump up the ABV without adding any body whatsoever. So again, sneaky, easy to drink this beer, even though it clocks in at 6.5% ABV. Every single time I taste this beer, I ask myself why I don't drink it more often. Every single time. I agree. He's seen me do it. This is one of those beers too that the thing that no one ever talks about in beer sadly is the yeast and a huge part of the flavor here. The hops are sterling and crystal. But what makes this beer so impactful is the saison yeast strain, which is allowed to just free rise. So those strains can get pretty warm when they're fermenting. And if you don't control that by like jacketing the brewing vessel and cooling it down on purpose, I think this gets into like the 90s when it's fermenting. And that produces some of these beautiful esters that again, this is the deep end of brewing. So if we went from, you know, some of these pale ales and IPAs are like, you know, moderate, this is advanced. Yeah. Like you just got into the area where the beer could either be beautiful or undrinkable from it could end up tasting like soap. It could end up tasting like rubber cement, could end up tasting like Yankee Candle. But what we have here tastes like cloves and bananas and bubblegum. I'm glad you mentioned that, Roger, because I was just about to say that it has classic estuary nose that you would expect from a saison. And it has like the kinds of fruits and flavors that you would associate with sweetness. But the fruit underneath is like lemon. It's so bright and fresh like lemon that it's not sweet. It has those flavors, but it's not. It's like completely about tricksy. Yeah. There's almost like a soft apricot blossom in the nose. Apricot blossom. Yeah. I think I had that as a soap. And you know, Rod, you were talking about Two Brothers and Farmhouse Beer as their kind of flagship. And it's kind of the same thing here as like just this is a obviously by the time Love Color came around, people were a little more ready for craft beer and what it could do, what people were doing in it. But still to have this be still their flagship all these years later and just, you know. Good point. Yeah. And they've brewed all sorts of stuff. But a lot of their stuff is, you know, just as weird. I'm going to say weird. They make a lot of weird beers. They make weird beers. They introduce people to a lot of different styles. Is a risk. And I would say where it's it's hurt some other breweries is that again, Dave and John are two of the best brewers in the city. I mean, this is the kind of thing where you need to know exactly what you're doing. To pull some of these styles off. So that is where I really like hats off to them and how they are brewing some styles where again, things could go horribly wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely check out this. If you are interested in food and beer pairing, Garrett Oliver, we had him on the podcast a while back. You should listen to that episode. He wrote a book called The Brewmaster's Table. It's kind of the iconic resource for food and beer pairing. He calls Saison du Pont the Swiss Army Knife of food and beer pairing. So again, if you're like, I don't know what to pair with food, try a Saison, try that one, but also try Apex Predator. And just try it with all sorts of different foods that you enjoy. It pairs beautifully with all sorts of different stuff. Yep. All right, last but not least, now we're right back to IPAs. You thought we were going to escape Hazys. The original Hazy, buddy. The original Chicago Hazy, boy. Let's finish with the Hazy, because I mean Chicago's become synonymous with Hazys, and this is a good one. This is Maplewood, Son of Juice. Maplewood opened up in 2014, and this beer was released in 2017. Juice, it kind of derived out of the beer called Juice Pants. Juice Pants. This one is a little bit lower ABV. It's 6.3, so it's a little more sessionable, still much higher than a traditional session beer. Sessionable to us old fogies, who used to drink 7.5% normal IPAs. The hops here are a really cool mix. Mosaic, cryo-mosaic, meaning they were cryogenically frozen to concentrate the lupulin, the good stuff. Simcoe, Simcoe Cryo and some Nugget. Arguably, just as important to a great hazy is the Grain Bill. So, you want it to be really soft and plush and creamy. So, two key ingredients for that are to incorporate oats and wheat. This malt bill is some Pilsner Malt, Malted Oats, Golden Naked Oats and White Wheat. Golden Naked Oats is kind of again one of these like, I think some of the beers where people go, how come, you know, this one stands out from the rest? That's an interesting ingredient. That's a de-hust oat, hence the term naked, but it's also crystallized. So, it's from an English maltster who, you know, they love to caramelize malts and they call them crystal malts in there in England. But it gives it like a nuttiness. It's used in very small proportion here. So, like, this is still just looks like a typical hazy. It's not dark by any means. But I think maybe there's pineapple juice than orange juice. Right. Sometimes that's the magic of a great brewer is knowing to just put these little tiny bits here and there to make something stand out from the pack. Yep. Juice. I mean. It's light and fluffy. It's crazy how, I mean, if you said, is there juice in this? I mean, I might say, yeah, it's crazy juicy. Really? You think so? It's the pineapple character, the orange, the like tangerine kind of. Apricot. Yeah. Maybe I've just had so many other hazies that are so far beyond this. So overwrought. So much more juicy that this is just restrained. It is restrained. It's so drinkable. It's definitely restrained in its like mouthfeel and it's not like this idea that you need to make these really thick hazies. I think those appeal to a smaller audience. So the reason that this has become one of the best selling hazies in the market is because it has some balance. It has some drinkability. It has a teeny bit of hop cut. It's not sweet. Not necessarily bitter, but it's not sweet. Yeah. I agree with all of them. It's possible to drink more than one of these. Yeah. You could drink, this comes in lots of different sizes now, but they, it's doing really well in 12 packs. I think it does well in a 12 pack in a way that other local hazies wouldn't because of that drinkability, that balance, that it's not this thick. This was fun to drink, five ounces of, kind of, how some of these are. Oats tend to add a slick, creamy mouthfeel to beer and this is very restrained on that level too. But super juicy, good brunch beer. Yeah. Brunch beer? Yeah. If you like mimosas. Oh yeah. It has that mimosa feel, spritzy, juicy. It's brighter and fresher than I remember. Yeah. Way lighter in body than I remember. Well, it is son of juice. So they made the thicker, you know, bigger. But yeah, this is... Pants. Pants. So anyway, that's a little jaunt through some of our favorites. 44:57 Revisit Classic Brews Mostly all Illinois except for Floyd's, but all kind of Chicagoland area. Obviously lots of other excellent options. Went for some breweries that have been around for a little bit longer. Some of the newer breweries don't necessarily have flagships yet, but some of them do. So tons of great options. Check out the Beer Buzz. We're always going to keep celebrating flagships both from Illinois, the Midwest, and all throughout the country. Yeah. Yeah. Good lineup, Raj. Good work, Raj. It was really nice to revisit a lot of these. I have to admit I haven't had some of these in quite a while. Same. And you know. Chicago beer fans need to try these. They are like a reference point. These iconic flagship brands. I think you've picked things. I think they really stand out for their balance. Like so many things in some of these categories can be a little wacky, but these are all just really dialed in versions. And that's when I kind of get on my soapbox and try to get people to believe in beer. I think we went through a phase where like a lot of breweries are making things that were awesome because they were so big and so over the top and so, you know, fun to drink a couple ounces of. And I've talked to some friends over the years who used to be super into beer and kind of don't drink as much anymore. And, you know, when they do buy beer, they buy this kind of sort of stuff that they are like, you know, I know what I'm going to get. And it's the kind of beer that I can enjoy like more than one glass of. I've always been about, you know, we can do both. Breweries can do both, but they only can do both if people, you know, go back and revisit some of these beautiful beers. And sadly, we've seen what happens when people don't. You know, we've lost some pretty iconic breweries like Anchor and Rogue. And, you know, so it can be important to take a step back and enjoy some of these ones that we take for granted, while still enjoying some of the really new creative stuff that continues to come out. Again, thanks for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle. If you enjoyed this, please leave us a review. Spread the good word about us. Tell your friends. Until next time, I am Roger. I'm Jim. I'm Greg. I'm Chris. Keep tasting.